


The Cup Overflowing

by gabolange



Series: The Best of What Might Be [3]
Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Smut, Sneaking Around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 09:29:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10682508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: Somehow she finds herself with only the thought that they should be careful, not that they should stop.





	The Cup Overflowing

**Author's Note:**

> Part three in the sneaking around S2 AU, following on from "The Passion With Which It Is Practiced." 
> 
> Thanks as ever to pellucid for beta reading and encouragement. All errors are my own.

***

The night shift at the maternity home is quiet, and Sister Bernadette finds herself far more alone with her thoughts than she had intended. She has tried, however unsuccessfully, to banish Doctor Turner from her mind--but here, alone and surrounded by too many things to remind her of him, she can barely focus on the small tasks before her.

She’d had a brief idea that sleeping with him might quell her desires and quiet the yearning that sits close beneath her skin. She had entertained that sex might be enough, somehow, and that after, she could go back to a life of devotion and forget wanting him, wanting everything he might give her. 

How utterly wrong she had been. It had been easier before she’d known so much: the way his voice breaks when he comes, the way his fingers dance against her skin, the way he fits inside her. Easier when her imagination wasn’t supplanted by a reality far better than her dreams, one she finds herself wanting more of with every passing moment. 

It wasn’t so long ago that she passed judgment on the unmarried mothers who crossed the clinic’s doorstep, praying they would repent their sin, praying the world would be kinder to them than she knows it could ever be. She knows it is only luck that she is not in that position herself, but somehow finds herself with only the thought that they should be careful, not that they should stop. She could not stop now. She never wants to stop.

What she doesn’t want is to think about what it might mean to make the choice to stop or not stop--it is easier, now, to enjoy having started and ignore the rest for another minute. She has to laugh at the mess of it all.

A familiar step sounds in the corridor and she looks up to see him gazing down at her, mouth quirked up in amusement. “Something funny?” Doctor Turner asks.

“You have no idea,” Sister Bernadette says, smiling in surprise before meeting his eyes. She suspects she is wrong about that, too.

**

He needs to pick up a file in his office, he says with a glance over his shoulder that encourages her to follow him in. It makes her blush to think that it is probably an excuse to see her, an idea that is solidified when he steps behind her as she turns to close the door. 

He is warm behind her and she lets herself drop her head back to rest against his shoulder. His arms fold around her, one at her waist and the other under her breasts, and he shifts to kiss her cheek. His stubble scratches against her skin but she leans into the touch, small and intimate.

He doesn’t move to kiss her properly, but instead kisses the corner of her mouth, then her cheek where it curves into her chin. He releases one hand from around her to push her wimple and cap off, then when they have fallen to the floor, he kisses the skin he has revealed just beneath her ear. 

She likes the way his breath is warm against her shoulder, the way he presses her closer to him, likes the way his tongue feels against her skin, just lightly touching. She likes the way the hand he had resting under her sternum shifts to grasp her breast through her clothes, squeezing gently, unhurried but so intent. 

“Mm,” she says as he flexes his fingers one by one, drumming a pattern into her breast. The fabric of her habit is too thick and she can see the way his fingers move, but she can’t feel them the way she wants to, the way she know will make her heart pound and her breath catch. She releases his hand to fumble for the clasp of her clothing at her shoulder.

He steps back to help her, practiced at this now, and she moves out of the puddle of blue cloth at their feet. He wastes no time in returning his hands to her body, and that is better, that is what she’s been missing in these long days since he has touched her. 

Her back is still to his chest, but now with the weight of the habit gone, he can glide his fingers down her collarbone and across the narrow straps of her slip. His hands are calloused and dry from constant work and workaday soap, but so skilled, so gentle, as he trails his fingers between her breasts before grasping one in his hand. He squeezes her nipple through the fabric of her underclothes, rolling it between his fingers, and she feels herself push into his hand, arching her back. 

It would be so easy to give into this now, and she wants to, oh, she wants to. But--. 

She finds his fingers with her own, stilling his movements before she turns in his arms. Desire wars with confusion on his face, and she reaches to quiet his concern by resting her hand on his cheek. He follows her hand with his, holding her palm against him before bringing their joined hands to his chest, where his heart beats fast under her fingers.

“What is it?” he asks.

She kisses him briefly before stepping back and staring at his shoulder. Given her profession, the words she needs to say should come more easily than they do. She takes a breath. “We should think about contraception,” she says quietly, smoothing her hands over his jacket. “It wouldn’t do to--.”

“No,” he says and she looks up to meet his eyes. The smile he wears is a little startled; she wonders if he finds it as peculiar as she that it has taken them this long to acknowledge this particular danger. “That would be--.” He stops, and she wonders what images flash in his mind in the long moment before he continues with, “--quite the scandal.” 

As if it would not be a scandal to be found like this, tangled up in each other’s arms in the darkness of his office. He leans forward to kiss her, taking her face gently between his hands. He touches his tongue to hers, tasting and sharing, and she folds her arms around his waist, hugging him to her, leaning her head back to maintain the kiss. 

And now he is the one to pull back, slowly releasing her from the kiss. He glances around the office. “I don’t think I have any rubbers,” he says, brow furrowed but tone matter-of-fact. “We should, but I think the order for the clinic was late.” 

She blinks at him. Of the many ways she expected this discussion might go, a conversation about supplies stocking had not occurred to her. “I’ll check on that in the morning,” she says, almost rote, because they should have these things on hand for their patients and it offends her sense of order that they do not. 

More immediately, though, she won’t be able to have what she wants now, and she sags against him. The fabric of his suit is cool beneath her forehead. “I suppose--,” she starts, hearing disappointment creep into her voice.

His fingers find her chin and he tilts it up so she meets his eyes, a grin dancing across his face. He runs his thumb over her bottom lip before cupping her cheek. “Oh, my dear,” he says, voice dropping coarsely. “We can still have a good night.” 

He flexes the fingers he is resting on her face, a small movement that makes her shiver. “Show me,” she says, holding his gaze. 

The look on his face is so near to one she has seen countless times when he is considering a diagnosis, trying to decide what to do next, except for the desire that crowds into his eyes. He seems to make up his mind, and with his free hand he tugs her toward him, repositioning them in the room so she is backed up to his desk. 

He kisses her then, letting his hands tangle in her hair as he sucks on her lower lip, drawing it between his. He worries her lip with his teeth, biting gently, and she can only reach to hold him to her, twisting her fingers in the hair behind his ears.

As he draws out the kiss, he shifts his hands from her hair, running his fingers down the curve of her neck, pressure against her pulse point. She breaks the kiss to swallow against the sensation, feeling the movement under his fingertips. He moves slowly, too slowly, down her neck, tracing her throat, making a small circle in the hollow between her collarbones. His breath is close beside her ear as he whispers, “I want to learn what you like.”

So does she; learning this from him, with him, has become her favorite pastime. He trails his fingers from her jugular notch to the top of her sternum, and suddenly she thinks she knows his plan: he will map her body with his hands before the night is through. The idea makes her moan.

He traces the line of her arm to her elbow, kissing the place where her shoulder meets her arm as he does. She would never have imagined that his fingers on her elbow could be arousing, but gooseflesh rises under his hands as he strokes the skin inside her arm, tracing a line to her wrist. He follows his hands with his mouth, dropping the barest of kisses down her forearm, stopping to meet her eyes before he kisses her palm.

She twists her hand to hold his fingers in his then, a brief acknowledgement of the affection that she cannot quite speak but does not know how to hide, not now. Not when his tongue darts against her palm, not when he is drawing her fingers into his mouth, sucking gently at each of them in turn. Her breath catches as she watches him.

He settles his hands at her waist, encouraging her onto the desk. She hears more than feels the paper crunch behind her--on a different night, she would be reorganizing his files, ensuring everything was alphabetized correctly--and he shifts a hand to her thigh. 

He pushes her slip up, revealing the top of her stockings. He traces the wool where it meets her skin, such a stark contrast, before unclasping one of her garters. He draws her stocking slowly down her leg, tracing every inch of skin he uncovers as he goes. His hands are close to where she wants them, but not close enough, and she feels herself shift against the desk moving her hips closer to him.

“Patience,” he says, fingers dancing on the inside of her knee, then her calf. He pauses at her ankle, holding her foot in his hand, before kissing the bony part; the talocrural joint, some part of her brain corrects. Then there his mouth on her skin, his fingers tapping an incoherent rhythm, and oh, how can something so simple be so much? How can his hands on her knee, on her foot, cause such wetness to pool between her legs, cause her to bite her lip against the sounds she wants to make? 

He pulls off her stocking and starts on the next, the same interminably slow movement. He kneels down in front of the desk and she rests her bare leg over his shoulder, her knee beside his ear. He turns to kiss it before returning to his task, and she shakes under his touch.

“Oh,” she says, “oh.” Her voice is breathy and barely recognizable as he draws her second stocking down her leg. She flexes her toes against his hand before he drops her legs gently against the desk and pushes her slip up above the hips.

“You should take this off,” he says, standing enough to draw her slip over her head. He rests his hands beside her on the desk, leaning over her then. He kisses her breasts above the line of her brassiere, one and then the other, then reaches behind her to unclasp her. Soon he is trailing his fingers over her breasts, the barest touch against her nipples.

She is beginning to learn what she likes, and she loves that, the way he fondles her breasts. She thinks she might let him do that forever and the look on his face suggests he might not mind. 

But then he shifts down, kissing her sternum, stubbled cheeks between her breasts, as his hands find her stomach, fingers probing above the line of her knickers. She wants to wrap her legs around him, but she knows she can’t do that, not tonight, and instead she spreads her legs, beckoning him closer.

He curls his fingers around the top of her knickers, pulling them down her legs. She is naked now. Her hands support her on his desk, just barely, and her legs quiver. She craves his hands or his mouth or something, anything to relieve this ache pooling in her belly.

And yet as he drops to his knees, instead of sinking his fingers into her, he touches the inside of her thighs, drawing a line down her femur from her hip to her knee. Hip flexor, she thinks. Medial cruciate ligament. Oh God. He kisses her thighs, his nose bumping against her vulva, his fingers dancing against her knees.

He hasn’t touched her intimately and still she thinks the papers on his desk will be soaked from her wetness. “Touch me,” she says as her wrists grow weak under the pressure of holding herself up against his onslaught. Please, she thinks, just touch me, fuck me.

“I have been,” he says, and he sounds far too satisfied. She pushes herself up to peer down at him and, seeing the grin on his face, kicks her leg over his shoulder, drawing him bodily between her legs.

She feels his smile against her inner thigh just before he bites it, a sharp moment that makes her shudder. He follows with his tongue, soothing the skin before scraping his teeth against it. “Oh,” she says, legs shaking. “Oh gracious.” 

And then, finally, he kisses between her legs, dropping his mouth to her clitoris. She can’t stop the sounds she is making, surely any patient who wakes will hear her, but she wouldn’t know how to stop as she rocks her hips against him, smearing his face with her juices. 

He touches her clitoris with his tongue, sliding two fingers inside her with a quick twist of his wrist. “Oh,” she says. “There.” He fucks her with his mouth and his hands, curling his fingers inside her in a rhythm she tries to match, rocking her hips against him. 

“Oh, oh,” she says with one particular scrape of his nail against her. She feels herself draw him closer to her with her ankles, as if it is possible to be closer than this, with his nose buried in her pubic hair, his tongue and fingers pressing deeply into her. He sucks harder on her clitoris and her hips jump. 

He has done this with her before, but it was new then, and now she knows what is coming, knows that with just one more kiss, one more curl of his hands--she covers her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle the moan she cannot contain as she comes.

Her legs are shaking as she removes them from his shoulders, and he kisses each of her thighs as she does. “You--,” he says and trails off, as if he isn’t sure what word he wants to describe her in these moments. After a minute to catch her breath, she leans forward and kisses the corner of his mouth, tasting herself there just a little. She still doesn’t like it, but she minds less now that she knows what it means.

She slides carefully to her feet, unsurprised to find her knees wobbling beneath her before he draws her back into his embrace. He is still fully clothed, she realizes, and as she folds herself against him, the light fabric of his suit scratches her tingling skin. “Mm,” she says, taking in the contrast between them, the feel of the worsted wool under her palms and against her collarbone. 

Her legs quaver and she wriggles, trying to find her footing. His erection presses between them, hard and heavy, and she thrusts her hips lightly against his. She could stay like this forever, she thinks, wrapped in his arms, naked and shaking from orgasm--but surely it is his time now. Surely, she can find a way to return the gift of these last long, wonderful minutes. 

She remembers the way he took her fingers into his mouth, the way he moved his tongue over them , and with a jolt, she knows what she is going to do. Oh, she wants to see what he looks like, hear what sounds he makes, when she trails her fingers over his cock and doesn’t have to stop. She wants to make him come with her hands and her mouth. 

She reaches to push his jacket off his shoulders. “Your turn?” she asks, and she hardly recognizes her own voice. 

He blinks at her, though he cannot be surprised at her intentions. Still, he says, “You don’t have to--.”

And she adores that about him, that he would pleasure her on his knees and expect nothing in return, but she wants to see what she can do for him. 

She undoes his waistcoat and reaches for his braces, drawing them down his shoulders. She doesn’t bother with the rest, shifting her back to the front of his trousers and cupping him through the wool. She can feel his length under her fingers and he thrusts into her grasp, almost without thinking. She wonders if making her wait was wait enough for him.

And so she unbuttons and unzips him, pushing his trousers and pants down enough to draw him out. His cock twitches in her hand, and he looks down at her, eyes dark and full of need. “You don’t have to--,” he repeats, but his tone belies how much he wants her to touch him.

“I know,” she says before sinking to her knees before him. She takes him in hand again and leans forward to kiss him, touching first her lips and then her tongue to his penis. She kisses down the shaft, tasting the sweat and salt there, and if she doesn’t know precisely what to do, his hands in her hair and the groans he cannot contain tell her he doesn’t mind.

She shifts her fingers to cup his testicles, running her fingers over the skin, which is soft. “Oh God,” he says, and she feels his balls tighten against her touch. He flexes his hands in her hair, trying, she thinks, not to grab or pull, and the idea makes her smile against him. 

Again she touches her tongue to his cock, licking up the shaft. “Oh, Jesus,” he says, so she does it once more, pressing her mouth firmly against him, following her lips with her fingers.

She works her way up his cock, hot and hard, before swirling her tongue over the head. “Oh God,” he groans, flexing his fingers, trying so hard, she can tell, not to hold too hard. But once, twice more with her tongue, and that is all it takes before he can’t control himself anymore and thrusts further into her mouth, filling it with his release. 

It is warm and salty down her throat and she laps at him with her tongue, encouraging his orgasm as long as she can. She likes the way he tastes, which surprises her, and she smiles against him as he finishes.

She is still smiling as she stands up, meeting his overcome eyes with her own before she leans against him. She is not sure which one of them is supporting the other or how long it takes before he recovers his voice. “Good night?” he asks, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“Mmm,” she says against his chest. To her own ears, her voice sounds heavy with lingering desire. “Definitely.” 

**

Sister Bernadette sits at the reception desk, papers disorganized in front of her, the thoughts she had earlier dismissed beating an incessant rhythm against her skull. She prays for a distraction: perhaps Mrs. McCullough will go into labor before the morning shift, perhaps Mrs. Hicks will need more pain relief.

Perhaps the building will spontaneously catch fire, she thinks, rolling her eyes at herself. 

She can pray instead for guidance, for a solution to this dilemma she has created. But she suspects that God’s voice will be quiet; He did not stay her hand when she first led Doctor Turner to her bed, and He has not given her much by way of counsel in the intervening weeks. Her problems, it seems, are her own to solve.

The way she sees it, she has two choices: she can fully recommit herself to the life she vowed to live, forgetting both Doctor Turner and the life she knows he would offer her. Or she can turn her back on her home, her sisters, her standing in the community, and for what? A man?

No, she corrects herself. This man.

She buries her face in her hands. What a mess they have gotten themselves into.

***


End file.
